Michelle Knight reveals how Ariel Castro beat, bound and deprived her in interview with Dr. Phil

8:25 AM, Nov 6, 2013

8:25 AM, Nov 6, 2013

Photo courtesy of WEWS

Copyright 2013 Scripps Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

CLEVELAND -- Michelle Knight, who was held captive by Ariel Castro for 11 years, revealed details of what happened to her inside the convicted rapist and kidnapper’s home in a national TV interview with Dr. Phil Tuesday.

“When he did abuse me, it lasted for maybe three or four hours,” said Knight, the first of Castro’s three victims. “He would stop, take a break in between and come back.”

Knight was kidnapped in Aug. of 2002 when she was 20 years old. She said Castro lured her inside his house with the promise of a puppy inside.

Instead, he trapped Knight inside a room and tied her up with an orange extension cord.

“I was tied up like a fish, an ornament on the wall,” she added.

During her first year, she described being chained to a pole in the basement and nearly suffocated by a motorcycle helmet that Castro put over her face.

“The chains were so big,” said Knight, who said she would often pray to God to pop the chains’ locks. “And he wraps it around my neck. He sits me down on the floor, and he says this is where you’re gonna stay until I trust you. Now if I do it too tight and you don’t make it, that means you wasn’t meant to stay here. That means God wanted to take you.”

The beatings turned into rape. Also in that first year, Knight said she became pregnant by Castro, and when he found out: “I was standing up and he punched me with a barbell,” she said. “I fell to the floor.”

Knight subsequently lost the baby, but she said had faith that one day she may see her own son kept her going.

“I want my son to know me as a victor, not a victim, and I want him to know that I survived loving him,” she said.

However, Knight’s childhood wasn’t much easier. Prior to her abduction, she described nearly being locked up by her own mother who didn’t allow her out of the house or to have friends.

In a statement to Dr. Phil, Barbara Knight said her daughter’s childhood has been altered by Castro and her years in captivity.

Castro committed suicide in his jail cell a month after he pled guilty to charges and was sentenced to life in prison.

Copyright 2013 Scripps Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.